Obama's No. 1 needler: Stockman

It didn’t take long for Steve Stockman to light another fire in Washington.

After 16 years away from the nation’s capital, the Texas Republican lawmaker was back in the House for roughly two weeks before warning that he was willing to file articles of impeachment against President Barack Obama after he announced he would sign executive actions on guns.

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Sticking to the threat even after the actions turned out to be more of a wish list, Stockman landed on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show — where he proceeded to compare Obama to Saddam Hussein for the president’s news conference featuring kids, which Van Susteren dubbed a “little bit of a stretch.”

So, the cycle begins again. There’s a new Congress in town — along with a new resident loudmouth and agitator — and his name is Stockman, who is happily carving out a role for himself as Obama’s No. 1 antagonist in Congress. But playing the role of one of Obama’s most vocal new critics is a double-eged sword. It can help boost fundraising and make you a cable TV star, but it also can annoy local constituents who want you to pay attention to concerns closer to home.

“He just enjoys making noise and having people look at him, and I think he’s got some talents at making that happen,” said Matt Angle, director of Lone Star Project, a Democratic PAC. “He knows how to rattle someone’s cage and make them rush the bars.”

With the loss of last year’s favorite Obama cage-rattler, former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), conservative activists and cable bookers are looking for a new face to fill the job.

“There is a huge opportunity for smart, substantive and, at times, high-level rhetoric targeting the president and Democratic polices on Capitol Hill,” said Greg Mueller, a conservative Republican strategist. “There is an enormous frustration in the grass roots that nobody is fighting for their policies.”

But Mueller warned there is a risk, even if Stockman is safe politically in his district.

“What you have to be careful about is not just shooting from the hip, and that’s the case on either side,” Mueller said. “While you can dig in and be firm, I think you have to be smart about how you use rhetoric when we’re up against President Obama, who is maybe one of the best rhetoricians in the business.”

Though he backed off on the impeachment warning just a bit, calling such a move “not something to be taken lightly,” Stockman is moving full-speed ahead with plans to act as Obama’s most prominent foil.

Stockman is planning to offer live commentary of the State of the Union address on Twitter with the hashtag #youlie, a homage to Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who once yelled those words during a joint session on health care reform in 2009.

Stockman’s guest at the SOTU speech will be Ted Nugent, a musician and pro-gun advocate who received a visit from the Secret Service after saying in a speech to the National Rifle Association supporting Mitt Romney: “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

And Stockman announced Monday that he is hanging a 10-foot poster outside his office titled the “Obama Failometer,” which will score the president’s “failed” economic policies on a scale from 1 to 1,000. He started the measure off the charts at 1,194.

“The Obama Failometer is the Astrodome scoreboard of failed liberal policies,” Stockman said, referring to the baseball stadium board that lit up and played music every time a Houston Astro player hit a home run, much to the annoyance of the opposing pitcher. “Instead of celebrating home runs, it measures how badly Obama is striking out.”